


The Illusion of Order

by gmariam



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Study, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gmariam/pseuds/gmariam
Summary: Ianto Jones will do everything he can to stop the Hub's slide toward chaos. At the very least, it might help bring order to his own troubled mind.
Relationships: Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 16
Kudos: 104





	The Illusion of Order

The Illusion of Order

"What the hell happened to all my pizza boxes?" yells Owen a few hours into Ianto's first day at the dirty and chaotic Torchwood Three. "I was using those."

Ianto stands from where he was untangling a stork's nest of computer cords under his new station, but the Captain comes out of his office and beats him to the question. "What were you using old pizza boxes for?"

"I was building a tower," Owen replied.

"I took the tower out with the other six bags of rubbish I picked up this morning," Ianto offers, dusting off his trousers and beginning to rewire his system.

"Great, so that's what it's going to be like around here," Owen grumbles under his breath. "The new guy messing with my stuff."

Ianto nods, determined to hold his own against the gruff doctor. "That _is_ what I was hired for. And as I plan to clean out the refrigerator later this week, I suggest you label any science experiments you may have hidden behind the leftover take away."

"Jack," Owen whines, but Jack holds up his hands and grins.

"Personally, I think we could do with a bit of upkeep around here. And wait until you try his coffee."

Owen grumbles some more as he spins his chair around to ignore them. Ianto decides Torchwood Three needs more than upkeep: it needs divine intervention. He will do everything he can to stop the Hub's slide toward chaos, but it already feels like a losing battle. At the very least, perhaps it will help bring order to his own troubled mind.

* * *

Ianto tackles the area that is apparently their idea of a kitchenette the next day. It's really just a cart with an ancient, clogged-up coffee maker on it, surrounded by several shelves of chipped dishes, which are in turn surrounded by half-filled boxes of mismatched cutlery, cloudy pub glasses, three broken toasters, and a knife block. It's faintly unsettling, that they've fallen so far into their own negligence; then again, Owen had been building a pizza tower when Ianto had first arrived. Clearly they eat their take away straight from the box and don't bother with etiquette.

He assembles a full set of dishes from what he can, then bins the pieces that barely resemble ancient pottery. He finds a simple black coffee mug that he claims as his own, and a blue and white striped one that looks like something Jack would use. Which means it's time to tackle the coffee maker.

He gives up and buys a refurbished, but expensive, high-end machine similar to the one he used at Canary Wharf, charging it to the Torchwood account and hoping Jack doesn't see the bill. Ianto figures he can bury it deep in the miscellaneous budget line if needed. When he hands Jack a cup of coffee in the blue-and-white striped mug, he is assured he has nothing to worry about from the indecent sound the Captain makes.

There is a clean corner for food and drink now, and Ianto even sets up a second cart on the balcony and a table of glasses in the conference room. There are also half a dozen empty boxes, and on a whim, Ianto starts a new tower for Owen in a corner. Owen ignores it for two days, but on the third, he adds an empty box from a local adult toy store, as if daring Ianto to say anything.

* * *

The first time he steps into the Archives, Ianto almost turns around and quits. He returns later that afternoon and digs in. By the end of the day, he's at least found the desk and a mostly empty filing cabinet. He claims a comfortable chair from a nearby storage room no one seems to know exists, where he also finds an exceptionally nice crystal decanter sitting on a metal shelf next to the door. He brings the decanter upstairs to the conference room for the glasses table, since there's nothing wrong with prettying up the place, after all.

* * *

The storage room also offers some hope for Lisa's cold chamber. He finds a small table and lamp, a chair, and a fold-up cot. He brings in some pictures from his flat, and the thick quilt that had belonged to his grandmother. Another decanter appears in the storage room in place of the old one, and he tucks some flowers into it and places it next to her life support unit. It's still a rotten looking hospital room, but considering it's a life-and-death secret, Ianto is glad for small comforts.

* * *

On his second day in the archives, Ianto comes across a box labeled NIDWITS. He stares and stares and finally calls Jack on his earpiece.

"Sir, I've found a box downstairs, but I'm afraid I don't understand the label."

"What's it say?" Jack asks. Ianto can hear the distinct sounds of Space Invaders in the background.

"NIDWITS," Ianto tells him. "An acronym, perhaps?"

"Oh, that!" Jack exclaims. "Yep, it stands for 'no idea what it is.' When I took over and couldn't figure something out, I tossed it in the NIDWITS box for later."

"Seeing as it's rather full, I assume later never came around?"

Jack laughs. "Not really, no. Completely forgot about, to be honest. Why don't you bring a few things up and I'll take a look. It's pretty slow around here."

Ianto pulls several pieces, including a yellow toy car that inexplicably piques his interest. Jack tells him it's a remote-control toy that fell through the Rift from a 25th century colony near Alpha Centauri. Of course it's not, but Ianto does not correct him. Jack tries it out in the Hub, drives it right into the water, and sets it by Tosh's station with a plea to fix it.

Ianto puts the NIDWITS box back in the archives and leaves it for later. Much, much later.

* * *

The tourist office is the worst of all the rooms he's cleaned and sorted, and Ianto does turn around and quit, walking out the door, down the boardwalk, past the water tower, and straight to the Tesco Express. Where he buys up at least half of the selection of cleaning supplies, charging it to Torchwood with no regrets.

He cleans and scrubs and mops but it still feels dank and dark, like the rest of the Hub, and not for the first time Ianto wonders what he's got himself into. He's come from the bright steel tower of Torchwood One, clean and modern and open, to a Victorian-age sewer tunnel full of water and rats. Still, if he's going to be working upstairs (and he will, to escape the dark underground base, his even darker secret, and his nosey coworkers), then it needs to be clean.

So he scrubs until his knees are sore, and then he hangs some old posters from the Tourism Board and calls it a night after seeing Lisa to sleep.

* * *

It's not that he grew up accustomed to luxury and extravagant comfort. The estates were rough and tumble, his childhood home run-down. His mum kept it up as best as she could; if the curtains were worn, or the blankets threadbare, at least they were clean and mended. The floors were swept, the tables wiped, his clothing patched. It wasn't Kensington Palace, but his mum cared, and he learned to care as well. And he found creating order helped calm the chaos swirling around him.

Moving to London had been hard, of course. What did he know about how to keep a flat, even a small, run-down one? Star Wars sheets, plastic plates, and tea trays had been his first home away from home. It was chaos of a different sort—complete with a pet rat— in a city of high expectations and lofty dreams, and he'd hated it. For once in his life, he wanted something nice. Neat. New.

So he'd worked and saved and, Torchwood being an exceptionally well-paying job for a young single bloke, he'd pulled himself up and created the order he'd needed. A new sofa. A set of dishes. A framed print for over the fireplace (even if it didn't work.) And the suits, of course. When he'd started dating Lisa, she'd helped add small touches, like a throw pillow or a picture frame. Wine glasses. Nice towels. Then a bigger, nicer flat.

Now he's back in Cardiff, working in what amounts to a hole in the ground, living alone in an empty flat with most of his belongings packed in boxes. He cleans the Hub, and he decorates here and there, and he finds another decanter on the shelf that he takes home and fills with scotch for the rare nights he leaves the Hub and can't sleep.

The next day, he goes in and tries to hold back the chaos a little more. Especially when they lose Suzie and hire a PC who brings a different kind of disorder to a place that doesn't need any more.

* * *

Ianto has rarely considered himself overly sentimental, but when one of their contacts in the alien underground dies and leaves them a detailed wooden carving from the Graxis system, he finds a place for it in the Hub. When a painting of one of Wales' oldest castles comes through the Rift and ends up on his desk in the archives, he checks it over, double-checks it, and hangs it behind the counter in the tourist office; no one will ever suspect it's an original Richard Wilson.

He knows perfectly well he's sublimating a dozen other issues—his family, Canary Wharf, Lisa, Suzie—but each item he sets out reminds him of something good, and sometimes he desperately needs something good to hold onto amongst the bad. He suspects the others do as well, especially Jack. At times the Hub looks more cluttered than he'd like, but it also feels more like a real workplace and less like the dirty secret hideaway it actually is.

* * *

The new box tower is coming along nicely, even if Ianto constantly throws away the dirty take away boxes Owen tries to sneak onto it. It has a very misshapen style, certainly not practical or functional. One day Owen puts a post-it on a pencil and sticks it on the top. It says, "Owen's Castle." So Ianto starts his own tower with a printed sign that reads "Ianto's Palace." It will be neat and tidy and destroy anything Owen builds.

The game is on.

* * *

Ianto doesn't go out in the field much, unless there's something to clean and cover up. Which is why he is surprised when Jack asks him to go on a Rift alert one morning. He's taken to bringing Gwen everywhere, but it's still early and the others aren't in yet, so it's either Ianto or no one. It's a short drive and gives Ianto a chance to do some field work and study Jack as well.

He feels like he knows Tosh fairly well, has a handle on Owen, and is figuring out to manage Gwen and her more exasperating qualities (like pet names); Jack, however, can still be a mystery. Sometimes he is quiet and distant, a mystery even Tosh and Owen are still trying to understand after working with him for years. Sometimes Jack is dark and angry, frightening in an exciting sort of way. And sometimes Jack is carefree and flirtatious, so much so that Ianto isn't sure he'd able to say no if Jack ever tried to make good on his innuendo-laden comments and propositions. He isn't sure if he wants to say no, even if Jack is chaos and Ianto needs order so badly in his life.

The Rift alert takes them to the riverbank in Radyr, where they find a large crystal bowl buried in the mud. Most of the time the Rift brings them junk; rarely did it bring them something nice, and the bowl was beautiful, clearly old and of exquisite workmanship. Or it would be when it was cleaned up.

Ianto washes it, dries it, polishes it, and washes it again. He thinks about placing it in the archives, or maybe on top of one of his now full filing cabinets, but no one else would enjoy it. He considers putting it in the conference room with the decanters, or over by the sofa, but decides to put it on Jack's desk. It will go perfectly with all the other eclectic stuff there.

* * *

"So what's a large crystal bowl doing in my office?" Jack asks after three days. Ianto wonders if it took him that long to notice or that long to set aside his pride and ask about it.

"It's the one we found in Radyr," Ianto replies. Jack nods, waits for more, frowns when there's nothing else.

"And? Anything special about it that landed it on my desk?"

"Yes," Ianto offers. "I'm fairly sure that it's from the original Torchwood House, circa 1879." He has no idea how it ended up falling through the Rift and back to Torchwood, but the space-time continuum is funny like that.

"Right about the time Torchwood was founded."

"Yes, sir." Ianto is impressed that Jack knows Torchwood history. Then again, his name is scattered across most of it, so he probably shouldn't be surprised.

"And why my desk?" Jack asks, running his finger along the rim, as if remembering something important or special.

"You are the director of Torchwood," Ianto reminds him. "Seemed appropriate it go to you."

"Thank you," says Jack, then looks up with a broad grin. "Can I fill it with grapes to suck on?"

Ianto rolls his eyes and turns to leave. "I'll get you some candy sometime, sir." Jack laughs behind him, and Ianto makes a mental note to pick up some of Jack's favorite candy soon.

* * *

In the secret storage room, tucked behind a beautiful oak dresser which was in turn hidden behind a large box filled with nothing but styrofoam, Ianto finds a familiar poster in a cheap frame. He hangs it in the bathroom upstairs and waits for Owen to say something.

"Who the hell put an X-Files poster in the bathroom?" he gripes the next day. "We're Torchwood, not the FBI."

"So you did watch it," Ianto offers. Tosh looks up in interest.

"'Course I did," says Owen. "Doesn't mean I need a bloody UFO poster in my bathroom."

"Don't want to you believe, Owen?" Gwen teases, and Ianto is surprised that she's managed to make a joke that doesn't offend any of them for once.

"I think it's brilliant," Tosh offers. "Where did you find it?"

"In a storage room downstairs. Couldn't have been tucked away too long."

"Used to be mine," says Jack, coming out of his office. "I loved that show."

"You _live_ that show, Harkness," Owen points out.

"True, but I never met a man who could wear a suit like Mulder," Jack says. "At least until now." He winks at Ianto, who rolls his eyes while the others groan. They are all used to it by now.

"Do you mind that I hung it in the bathroom?" Ianto asks him later, wondering if he's been pilfering Jack's belongings from the storage room where he's found all the good stuff. "I didn't realize it was yours."

"It's fine," Jack laughs. "It spruces up the place. The towels too."

"You noticed," Ianto says. Honestly, he didn't think anyone would notice he'd replaced the towels in the shower area, even if the old ones had been so discolored that the new white towels were shockingly bright in the otherwise dull changing rooms.

"Occasionally I do notice things," Jack says with another wink. "Just let me know if you start making any structural changes."

Ianto swallows hard and tries not to think of the rewiring he'd done for Lisa's life support. It was more electrical than structural anyway.

* * *

When Lisa dies, Ianto goes in and cleans up one last time before his suspension. He desperately wants to throw everything in the incinerator, but he'd found a lot of the things from her room in storage, and so he dutifully puts them back, tucking them far in a corner after cleaning the up the blood. He locks the door behind him.

He goes back to his tiny flat for a month and scrubs it from top to bottom. It is clean even if he is not. He does not unpack his boxes, but he does make a tower.

* * *

There are two new decanters on the shelf when he returns (he couldn't resist checking.) He adds one to his growing collection in the conference room and keeps the other for himself at his desk. Empty, of course.

Surprisingly enough, the Hub itself is relatively clean, as if the team made an effort to pick up after themselves for the first time in months. Owen did not add any boxes to his tower, though he has grown some sort of green slime in the refrigerator. Jack's bowl is filled with chocolate candy wrappers, but his desk has only one pile of paperwork. Gwen's station is overflowing with pictures and notes and even a lavender candle. It's not how it would look had he been in, but it feels more like home than his flat, strangely enough.

Ianto throws himself into recataloging the archives. He cleans out the back room of the tourist office. He files every piece of paper he can. He even considers painting the recovery room, or maybe his office, but then Jack drags them to the countryside, and none of it matters anymore. Nothing helps.

* * *

Sinking into chaos is like drowning in a slow-moving river. He wonders if the others are incapable of cleaning up after themselves, if they prefer their workplace cold and cluttered, or if they don't even notice. Surrounded by dirt and disorder, Ianto lets himself fall, embracing the chaos even more as he tumbles into bed with Jack.

And then slowly, shockingly, his mind starts to settle. He picks up the tourist office. He catches up on the filing. He fixes the broken toy car and runs it down an empty corridor. And he unpacks a few boxes at home, even considers finding a new flat. When he finds another decanter on the shelf, he places it on Jack's desk and feels like the world might be okay after all.

* * *

Until Jack disappears, and leaves pandemonium behind him. The Hub is in ruins— glass and water and paper everywhere. Both his and Owen's box towers are toppled and smashed, which is more gutting than Ianto thought it would be. Computers are broken, the coffee maker needs repairing, and half the pictures he's hung have fallen down. And yet every piece of crystal he's placed around the Hub is miraculously untouched, and he almost weeps in relief as he packs the decanters in a box to be safe.

The glass bowl in particular gives him hope. It has survived since the founding of Torchwood, and Ianto places it on the table by the sofa and fills it with candy on their first day back. They clean and rebuild, move the conference room and his decanter collection downstairs, paint and rewire and clean some more. New equipment, some new supplies, and even a new greenhouse for Owen. Ianto finds he likes the greenspace almost as much as the doctor does, and they take care of it together. Sort of.

And then Jack returns, and once again Ianto's world is turned upside down.

* * *

"I like what you've done to the place," Jack says one night a few days after he's come back. It's late—the Rift has been active since Hart left and time shifted back—and Ianto is the last to leave. It was a habit before Jack disappeared, and he not only stayed late but often stayed overnight while Jack was gone. He's been trying to avoid being alone with Jack, but it seems old habits die hard.

He's not sure what to say. Thank you seems an odd reply for an equally odd comment. "There's always something that needs to be done around here," he says with a shrug, finishing the last file on his computer. "We were just forced to do a lot of it at once."

"You did good," Jack says, sounding less brash than usual and far more sincere. "The Hub, the team, the Rift. Everything—you did good."

Jack is right behind him when Ianto turns around. He seems sadder since he's returned, more unsure than when they were awkwardly searching the office block for a bomb. Ianto has always seen how lonely Jack is, but now Jack looks _alone._ He left them for his Doctor, to find answers, and came back a different man.

"Thank you." It still feels a ridiculous thing to say, but deep down Ianto is glad Jack noticed. It had been difficult to lose Jack— for Torchwood, for the team, for Ianto—and he had worked hard to keep both himself and the team from falling apart. Jack seems to know that, as he's been walking on eggshells for days, far from his usual self. Ianto is getting tired of it and wants everything to go back to normal, but what is normal anymore?

"Jack, I should—"

"I'm sorry," Jack interrupts. "I'm sorry I left the way I did and I'm sorry that you had to go through so much without me here. I'm sorry about the Hub and about John and about leaving without saying anything—"

"You said that already," Ianto points out with a small smile. Jack is definitely nervous.

"Right." Jack nods and steps back, tucks his hands into his pockets. "Then how about that dinner?"

"Tonight?" Ianto asks in surprise. "It's late."

"I'd like to see you," Jack says, his voice quiet.

"I'm right here."

"Not really," Jack says. "You're here, standing in front of me, but I feel like you're not. I'd like to spend some time with you. Talk."

He is being open and honest in a way Ianto has rarely seen. And if Jack wants to talk—talk and not shag around—then Ianto knows something must have happened while he was gone, something he needs to share. And Ianto can listen, try to bring order to Jack's chaos, perhaps.

He nods and turns back to his computer so Jack doesn't see his face. "How about having something delivered?" he suggests. He's not quite ready for that date.

"Orsinos?" Jack suggests. "Fettucine alfredo with chicken and broccoli?"

"No broccoli," Ianto tells him.

"Can't blame a guy for trying." Jack smiles, warm and sincere. "I'll call for it."

"I'll get some plates," Ianto says. "Had to buy some new ones so maybe I'll set the table and everything." He'd add one of Gwen's candle, but that would definitely send a message he doesn't want to send. At least not yet.

Jack smiles again, a genuine smile that makes him look less careworn. "Thank you," he says once more. Ianto suspects Jack's not thanking him for the plates.

* * *

He still turns to cleaning and sorting and filing and even new blankets for the recovery room whenever the chaos blossoms; he finds a good workout on the gun range helps as well. Decanters turn up regularly on the shelf downstairs and soon everyone has their own; Ianto considers selling them in the tourist office, but he's still not sure where they actually come from. He looks forward to their appearance.

Usually a few bad days sees a cleaner Hub before a return to normal, until they all forget the last seventy-two hours and Ianto finds himself scrubbing down his flat—the shower, the sink, everything. His car gets detailed, every suit sent to the cleaners. Something happened to them, something that's unsettled him more than a bad day at the office.

Only he doesn't remember what it was.

* * *

He will always remember the sound of the shot that hit Owen, the look of surprise on his face as he fell. The sound of Jack's desperate shout, the look on Tosh's face as Owen died right before them. And yet, Owen comes back and keeps on carrying on.

They all tread lightly around the doctor at first. Ianto may come off as unflappable and blunt, but deep down he is _freaking out_ and whenever Owen is not around (which isn't often, since he has nothing else to do), he cleans the autopsy bay: the table, the instruments, the monitors, the walls. He sweeps, he mops, he keeps the drawers clean and empties the refrigerator and does it all again a few days later.

Until Owen catches him and tears him a new one. Ianto shouts right back. Owen throws anything he can find on the floor. Ianto throws some more. Jack finally stops them, like two brothers fighting over a beloved toy, and they stomp off to their own stations, leaving behind a brilliant mess.

The next day, Ianto finds the start of a new box tower next to his desk.

He leaves a new alien plant for Owen on his.

And he realizes that there is no real order to life with Torchwood, only beautiful chaos. And he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

Ianto starts the new year—first day back and they've spent it chasing space slugs through the park—with a spectacular shag in the Hub after everyone leaves for the night. They don't make it back to Jack's bed, let alone Jack's office, and fumble on the sofa, arms and legs flailing everywhere, CCTV footage be damned (they usually erase it anyway.) One of them hits the table and knocks over the crystal bowl, and it falls to the floor with an ominous thump. It doesn't break into pieces, but there is a clear crack right down the middle.

At first, they stare at it in shock and gasping silence, then they start laughing at the ridiculousness of their reaction. Deep down Ianto feels the chaos pulling at him again as he watches Jack pick up the bowl. It seems an auspicious sign of the year to come, and if he were more superstitious, he would already be dressed and sweeping the floor.

Yet he doesn't feel the need to fix it, or hide it, or bin it. It's a part of Torchwood, like him, and now it's broken—like him. So what. Because like him, it can survive the chaos even with chips and cracks.

He does buy a new pillow for the sofa, because the old one needed replacing for reasons only he and Jack will ever know. It's clean and new and, for a fleeting moment, the illusion of order is restored once more.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This story came from a screencap I saw on Tumblr with the crystal bowl on the table by the sofa. It was from a second season episode, and looking back, one can see the same crystal bowl on Jack's desk during season one. I wondered what something so nice and breakable was doing right in the middle of the Hub. And then I thought about all those decanters in the conference room. And then Ianto came up as the one who put out the bowl, and I wondered why he would do that. We get that comment about him being house-proud in Serenity, but I wanted to explore it all more and so you get this. Less of a story and more of a character study through the idea of Ianto try to keep order against the chaos. Makes sense to me and I hope you enjoyed my spin on it all! Some things are from the show-the decanters, the bowl, the car-but others are my own. Thank you for reading!


End file.
